"I am the schoolmaster who made you dance, with your own revolver, after you'd threatened to kill me if I didn't drink liquor for you," retorted Harry. "Yes, I know you for a big bulldozer."
And Terry well remembered the first encounter, last summer, between Harry and Pine Knot Ike, when Harry not only had refused to drink but had cleverly snatched Ike's gun and ordered him to dance as a penalty. Yet Ike was as large in body as two Harry Reveres.
"Haw, haw!" laughed the crowd.
Ike glared around again.
"I cherish no bad feelin's," he alleged. "I air a man o' peace. I air so peaceful that I hain't bit a nail in two for nigh a full week. I mostly drink milk." His breath did not smell milky! "I air so peaceful that I gener'ly lay down an' let folks walk on me. But I would ask if a peaceful man pursuin' a lawful okkipation, on his way to build up a civi-li-zation in them Rocky Mountings air to be run over by two boys an' a wild buffler an' a yaller mule?"
"Hey! Your whiskey's leakin'!" called a voice.
And that was so. Pine Knot Ike exclaimed and leaped for his wagon. The odor in the air had not been entirely from his breath. The bullet intended for Duke had punctured the barrel near the top; and now the wagon was dripping.
Ike hastily clambered in. First he tried to stop the hole with his thumb; next with his hat; and while the crowd hooted he shamelessly stooped and glued his lips to the spot!
"Haw, haw! There's his 'lawful okkipation'!"
"That's his idee of 'civi-li-zation,' is it?"